Rust

 

As I walk around the store, a shopping basket on my arm, I’m still in shock by how four months can change a man. Four months can turn a man from a confused, uncaring animal to…well, to a confused animal who cares a little more, now. I think about Allison, think about the close nights we’ve spent together, think about how Bump is growing larger day after day. I have always tried to stamp out my emotions. I have always tried to tell myself I do not have a heart; hearts are not meant for men like me. But lately, I have started to believe that, just maybe, a man like me could know what it means to have a heart, to have genuine feelings. It’s soppy as hell and I never talk like this to Allison. She knows I care without me spewing all that shit out there, I’m sure. But still, it’s there, this change. And perhaps the strongest evidence for it is that here I am, shopping basket on my arm, looking around for some sushi.

 

It’s Monday, and all weekend Allison’s been going on about sushi. She’s hinted several times for me to go and get her some, but I’m not about to go out of my way for it. I might have started caring way, way more now that she’s holding my child, but I ain’t about to turn into one of those soft-faced, hen-pecked guys who nod numbly every time their woman gives them an order. Fuck that. But I’m already here, so I might as well pick some up. I find the sushi, drop it in the basket next to some other groceries—the fact that I’m even grocery shopping is still slightly absurd to me—and go to the checkout. At the checkout counter there’s a short red-headed woman with a neck tattoo of some kind of bird and makeup around her eyes which makes her look vulnerable. She gives me the look, which I know well ’cause women often give men in leather the look. I don’t so much as look her in the face after she gives me that look, and the rest of the interaction is passed in awkward silence. I’m not straying, not from Allison, not from my kid.

 

I go out into the snow to the pickup, load the groceries, and then drive to the library where Allison is working. I’ve asked her to take time off, but she’s told me in her professional-lady voice that she’s going to work right up until she drops, and I guess I can’t argue with that. If I’m not going to become hen-pecked, it seems she isn’t going a meekly obedient girlfriend, either. Girlfriend, I reflect, as the tires cut through the piled-up snow. Girlfriend. That seems like too much for a man like me. I never have girlfriends. Ever since I left home, I’ve never had a girlfriend. And yet it seems too little at the same time. She’s holding my child. Can she really just be my girlfriend?

 

In the library parking lot, I get the sushi from the shopping bag and make my way inside. The heat of the library—which is nothing like a library from when I was a kid, with computers along the walls, touchscreens, play centers for the toddlers, and even a café off to one side—is damn welcome after the biting cold of Motor City’s January. I nod to Marjorie, the head librarian, and she nods back with a smile. Marjorie sometimes gives Allison a hard time, but she’s become a lot easier to deal with since finding out Allison is pregnant. Turns out she’s not the dragon-woman Allison mistook her for.

 

I go down the corridor and peek into Allison’s office. Something catches in my throat when I see her like that. I tell myself not to be a soft bastard, but I can’t help it. She’s just sitting at her desk, ankles crossed and visible under the desk, biting her lip as she leans over a piece of paper and jots at it with a pen. That desk…that’s where our baby was conceived, must be. Strange to think that not too long ago we were just two strangers fucking on a desk.

 

I don’t knock, just push the door open and walk in, holding the sushi behind my back.

 

“Hey!” She gasps, and then deflates when she sees that it’s me. “Oh…You scared the hell out of me, Rust.”

 

“Maybe you ought to be scared of me,” I say. “Maybe you ought to run and hide someplace.”

 

“Ha ha,” she mutters. She looks at her computer screen. “It’s one o’clock already? I didn’t even realize.” She makes to stand. “I better go get some lunch.”

 

That’s when I reveal the sushi. Her eyes go wide when she sees it, and she even claps her hands together. Allison has a shifting personality: one moment she’s the professional social worker; one moment she’s a little girl excited at some sushi; and the next she might turn into the horny-as-hell woman who fucks in side streets and offices. I hand her the sushi and the plastic fork. She snaps it out of my hand, and then we go and sit on the couch, with the parking lot to the side of us, blanketed in snow, with more snow drifting lazily down.

 

“Good day?” I ask, as we sit side by side. I stretch my legs out, laying them on the coffee table. Allison shoots me a judgmental look, but I don’t move my legs.

 

“Stressful,” she says. “But you know how it is.”

 

“Winter,” I mutter.

 

“Winter,” she agrees.

 

Allison deals with a lot of homeless people, I know, which means she hears a lot of sad stories and works to help a lot of sad people who are spending their nights crusted with ice and snow, shivering to the depths of their bones. The Damned tries to help out where we can too, but the truth is that a lot of folks end up on the street because they need a more involved amount of help than we can give. But still, we do what we can. It’s been cool, finding the ways that Allison’s work and my family cross paths. I wrap my arm around her, massage her shoulder, not ’cause I feel like I have to, but ’cause it feels good to do it. That’s another shock to me, a constant one. I want to make her feel better. I want to her to happy. Never had that with a woman before.

 

Allison tucks into the sushi like a madwoman, demolishing it, and then goes to the cooler and gets herself a cup of water. She drinks half the cup down in one gulp and then returns to the couch, laying her head on my shoulder. Outside, the wind whistles softly.

 

“Rust,” she says quietly.

 

“Yeah?” I reply, liking the way her hair feels against my bearded cheek as I rest my cheek against the top of her head.

 

“Do you think…”

 

She trails off, and for a while we say nothing, just content to sit here. The sounds of the library, the raised voices of people on computers, the heavy footsteps, the toddlers in the play area, seem faraway.

 

“Do I think what?” I ask after a while.

 

She swallows—I hear it, a loud gulping sound—and then says, “Do you think we are in love—”

 

As she speaks, I catch something at the periphery of my vision. Enforcing hones your senses so that they are fine, so that you catch things you’d normally miss. I know that the flitting at the corner of my vision could be nothing, but my gut tells me otherwise. I turn and scan the parking lot. When I see him, trying and failing to duck down behind a black SUV, my throat constricts. I let out a growl, and everything else but him goes dark: he is the only thing I can see.

 

I know it is Trent even from this distance because of his stupid Viking haircut, one side of his head completely shaved and the other hanging down, wet from the snow.

 

I’m on my feet in a second.

 

“What is it?” Allison says, sitting up.

 

“Unpatched,” I grunt, and then jog out of the office, slamming the door open.

 

I rush through the library, head down, arms pumping, as fast as I can, anger moving through my limbs, propelling them. Trent, who over these past months has been like a fuckin’ specter, Trent, who has been selling heroin like The Damned don’t even exists, Trent, who thinks he can do whatever the fuck he wants—and now he’s here, spying on my woman, the mother of my child. I clench my fists as I barge out into the snow. I head toward the black SUV, which is slowly becoming white in the snowfall, and walk around it, looking for him. He’s not here. I look at the snow, trying to see footsteps, but plenty of people walk to and fro around here and finding any particular set of footsteps is impossible.

 

“Where are you, you cowardly fuck?” I growl, turning full circle, looking toward the main road, the library building, the park which is off to one side, the swing and the climbing frame deserted. “Where are you, you unpatched fuck? Spying on my woman…spying on my fuckin’ woman!”

 

I punch my chest, unable to halt my anger, but no matter how much I scan my surroundings I can’t see him. A few people walk toward or from the library, glancing at me like I’m some crazy guy and giving me a wide berth. I bite down, my jaw tight, temples aching, head fogged over. He must’ve had his bike nearby, I reason, and now he’s gone. But I didn’t hear an engine. Maybe he had it down the road some, and he jogged to it, and he’s left. But why was he here? For me, or for Allison? Goddamn, I’m goin’ to have to put a watch on the library from now on. Or maybe I’ll watch it myself. God fuckin’ damn it.

 

I return to the library, feeling defeated. Allison is waiting for me in the lobby section, eyes wide with worry. “Did you find him?”

 

I shake my head. “No,” I say darkly. “No, I fuckin’ didn’t.”

 

Allison approaches me as a woman would approach an angry lion and I can’t blame her; I feel like one right now. But when she lays her hand on my shoulder, I feel myself calming down, my jaw unclenching. The fog in my head ascends and disappears and I am able to think properly. I place my hand on Bump, stroke it. “If anything happened to you…” I swallow, unable to complete the thought. “I need to go to the club, tell the men what I saw. I’m going to arrange for a look out to watch your workplace. You don’t leave this building without protection.”

 

She rolls her eyes. “Rust—”

 

“No,” I interrupt, voice stern. “We can’t risk it. Don’t leave this building today until I arrange protection, alright?”

 

I stare at her firmly, leaving no room for argument. I won’t hear anything else. We need to keep her safe; we need to keep our child safe. She must sense that I’m not messing around, ’cause she bites her lip and nods. “At least let me see you out.”

 

“Just outside the door,” I say, “and then straight back inside.”

 

“I’m right here.” She smiles at me as we walk through the automatic doors and stand for a moment in the winter cold. “You see—I’m safe. Nothing’s going to—”

 

Her eyes go wide, glancing over my shoulder. The snow, I think numbly, my enforcer brain ticking overtime. The goddamn snow: muffled footsteps. Muffled footsteps—snow. How many times have I used that to my advantage? Goddamn it. I spin, raising my fists, but when I’m about halfway around the bat comes down on my head with a sound like splitting wood. The pain strikes lightning through my skull, into my brain, and my legs are kicked out from beneath me. I land face down in the snow, my mouth full of blood and moisture, my nose smashing down brutally and blood pissing out, turning the white blanket crimson.

 

I try and roll onto my back, but another strike hits me between the shoulders. I let out a roar, which is immediately stifled with mouthfuls of cold bloody mush.

 

Faraway, I hear Allison, as though in a dream: “Rust! Rust! Rust! Rust!”

 

Get up, I tell myself. Get the fuck up right now. Can’t you hear her screaming? Get up, man. Get the fuck up. She’s screaming for you. She’s terrified. Get up, man, get the fuck up! But my arms feel limp from the strike between my shoulder blades and my face is crusted with blood. I manage to roll onto my side, panting, so that I can see Allison’s kicking legs. For a moment it seems like they are all that exists: just two legs, kicking wildly. But then I follow the legs up to her belly…her belly! When I see Bump—and the leathery arm wrapped just beneath Bump—I open my mouth to shout. But all that comes out is a pathetic sigh as snow tumbles down my cheek. I lay my fist into the snow and push with all my strength, but right now it feels like all my strength is being sapped: my back is pulsing making it difficult to move my arms; and my head feels as though it has swollen to twice its usual size.

 

“The baby!” Allison yells, her voice much quieter now. “Rust, the baby! The baby!”

 

Her kicking legs become wilder as the leather-wearing man—it’s Trent, that fuck, he circled around and got the jump on me—opens the door to the black SUV and shoves her inside. The baby…the goddamn baby. In my dazed state, I see Mom; I see Mom’s eyes and I see the absolute disregard in them. I hear her voice, ringing out in my head: “I have met a man, and, well…we’re going to start a life together, and you can’t be here, you just can’t …” I remember pushing through the door, head down, hands in my pockets, fourteen years old and walking away, never before or since feeling more rejected. My baby…my fuckin’ baby…I won’t let him feel that same rejection. I won’t let him feel abandoned, deserted, like Mom made me feel.

 

Somehow, despite the countless aches and pains throughout my body, I manage to climb unsteadily to my feet. I wobble from side to side, but then I’m running, one foot in front of the other, toward the SUV. I see Trent run around the side of the car and jump into the driver’s seat, see Allison trying the door handle—the bastard must have child-locked it—and then kicking the door with both her feet. The door shifts, but only slightly, and I’m still a few meters away when Trent puts the SUV in drive and screeches out of the parking lot, the tires kicking snow all over my face. I sprint after it, panting, fists clenched, thinking of Allison in the back of the car, thinking of Bump, thinking of all the fucked up things Trent is going to do to them. I sprint all the way to the main road, but the car is long gone, weaving through traffic, growing smaller and smaller as I stand here, stunned.

 

I feel like I stand rooted to this spot for a long time, but it can’t be that long ’cause the car is still in view. But I watch it for an age, it feels like: watch it recede into the distance, taking my lover and my child with it. Allison…and things were just starting to get close. In the office—she was going to say something in the office, wasn’t she? She was going to say something about love…I swallow, feeling like I’m swallowing shards of glass, and then shake my head, trying to shake away the pulsing pain. All that does is make it worse.

 

“Fuck,” I mutter, and then turn and jog through the parking lot to the pickup. I need to get to the club; I need to rally the men. I need to get everybody out there. Luckily the club isn’t too far from the library, so as I get behind the wheel and rev the engine, I know I only have a short way to go.

 

But just because the way is short, it does not mean my mind settles down. Immediately, as soon as I start speeding through the traffic, vision hazy from the blood and the snow, feeling like any second I could crash but not caring as long as I can start after Allison and Trent sooner, my mind fills with evil, horrible images. I want to close my eyes to them, to banish them from my mind, but I need to stay alert, focused. I speed down the street, cutting between cars, cutting off cars, damn near killing myself dozens of times. And all the while, playing on a constant loop in my mind, I see Trent leaning over Allison. I see Trent with Allison in his arms, squeezing her too tightly; I see Allison’s face turning red and her begging him to stop. “My baby,” I hear her moan, as Trent bear-hugs her. “My baby. Please…my baby. Please, stop it. My baby. Please …”

 

“Fuck!” I growl, smacking the steering wheel with my palm when a light turns red. Speeding is one thing; pulling out into the middle of an intersection is another. I need to keep breathing if I’m going to get to Allison. I take out my cell as I wait for the light to change and dial Zeke. No answer. Shackle, no answer. The lights turn green, and I drop my cell and continue to speed down the road. “Fuck! Fuck!”

 

I see Allison chained to some dirty pipe, my mind cruelly showing me image after image. I see Trent take a big step back, aim with his boot, and then—Allison keels over, weeping, begging for me to save her. She stares at me in my mind, those two green eyes full of reproach, begging me to come and rescue her, demanding to know why I didn’t stop her from being taken. The pain in my shoulders, my head, my face—none of it compares to the pain of knowing that Trent has her, out there, somewhere; and that he’s doing anything he likes to her and Bump.

 

As I drive, I try and picture the SUV. But it was just a black SUV. I try and picture the plates. Over my years of enforcing, I’ve gotten pretty damn good at picturing plates. One of the skills you need when hunting people down is remembering plates without having to look closely or for a long time at them. So I think back, as I have done dozens of times, and I realize that the SUV had no plates. It was just a black SUV, nondescript, and the plates were removed. I hear myself growl, my chest rumbling like the quaking of the earth before a tsunami hits. He must’ve planned to take her, then; he must’ve planned to kidnap my fuckin’ woman. I grip the steering wheel so hard that my knuckles turn bone-white.

 

Soon, I am turning into The Damned’ parking lot. I jump from the pickup and I’m walking through the snow when a bout of crippling pain hits me, my head tightening as though screws are being methodically inserted and rotated into my brain. I bring my hands to my head, trying to massage away the pain. That goddamn bat feels like it dislodged something. I try and keep walking toward the clubhouse, but now it seems far away, much farther away than it should. I grind my teeth, but that only makes the pain deeper. I wonder if I’m bleeding inside my skull; I’ve known that to happen to men before when they’ve been hit hard. Maybe I’m bleeding inside my head…maybe this is it, collapsing in the snow without telling anybody what happened to Allison or my child.

 

“Goddamn it,” I growl. No—I try to growl. Nothing comes out but a soft, hoarse breath: a breath so weak it doesn’t even throw any dragon fog into the air. I stop for a few moments, snow settling and then melting in my beard, and force myself to steady my breathing. Getting irate isn’t going to help save Allison; panicking will not save her. I have to turn off my emotions, I have to forget how much I care; I have to go back to being Rust, the enforcer …

 

But that’s impossible when there’s a baby in the mix. I can’t do it. ’Cause every time I try and turn my emotions off, I end up thinking of Bump and all the danger my child is in.

 

Even so, after a few minutes of deep, long breaths, my vision begins to clear and the pain recedes. It is still a massive aching in my skull, but I am able to push it far back where it doesn’t interfere with me. I head toward the clubhouse, ready to rally the men. All the men, now: fuck this scouting shit; fuck this staking-out shit. It’s time we busted down the doors of the unpatched. It’s time we ended this Trent fuck once and for all.

 

Because if we don’t, I reflect as I head into the bar area, shoving the door with my shoulder, the mother of my child dies. If we don’t find him, the emotion—maybe it’s even love—I have started to feel over these past months turns to ash. And I can’t go back to being cold, and numb, and full of distant hate. And I don’t want that. No, not again, not when I’ve tasted what it’s like to actually have a heart.